For quite a while now I have suspected it’s possible to set mplayer options on a per-file basis in freevo. I finally found the magic incantation to do this. What you need to do is create an FXD file with the same name as the video file you want to set the options for (with the extension .fxd instead of .mpg or .avi obviously).
You can create them manually (I have an example below) or use the imdb lookup feature to create one automatically, then edit it. The important part is the “file” line in the video section, you need to add an attribute called mplayer-options and set it to the extra parameters you want to give mplayer for that particular video.
I use this to crop the black borders from badly encoded videos, which means I can now watch them fullscreen without having to go over to the keyboard and enter huge command lines. Yay.
Here is an example FXD for Batman: Dead End, which if you haven’t seen I suggest you go download as it’s very cool.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<freevo>
<copyright>
The information in this file are from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).
Please visit http://www.imdb.com for more informations.
<source url="http://www.imdb.com/Title?0374526"/>
</copyright>
<movie title="Batman: Dead End">
<cover-img source="http://ia.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/64/89/06m.jpg">Batman_Dead_End.jpg</cover-img>
<video>
<file id="f1" mplayer-options="-vf crop=704:272:8:102">Batman_Dead_End.mpg</file>
</video>
<info>
<rating>7.4/10 (1,094 votes)</rating>
<plot>The Joker has escaped from Arkham and Batman must once again bring him in – once and for all. Unfortunately for the bat, there is something even more sinister than the Joker waiting in the alley for the dark knight detective..</plot>
<tagline></tagline>
<year>2003</year>
<genre>Short / Action / Crime / Fantasy / Thriller</genre>
<runtime>8 min</runtime>
</info>
</movie>
</freevo>